Dearest SCOR Community,
With opening weekend in the rearview mirror, we wanted to give a huge heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful community partners, coach Phil and his professional coaching staff, and the long list of volunteers including the parent/coaches and division leaders who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to provide your kiddos an incredible launch to the spring soccer season. Although it was a bit soggy Saturday, it was wonderful to watch the kids reconnect with their buds–and the back of the soccer nets–on opening day.
We want to also give a special shout out to all the coaches and players on the travel teams who donned SCOR’s colors and represented Ridgefield at fields across Fairfield County Sunday —we hope you had a killer first day!!
As this is my first note as the newly anointed communications officer for SCOR –and for those of you whom I’ve not had the good fortune of meeting—please indulge me with this opportunity to quickly introduce myself. My name is Matt Renner; my wife Meghan and I are celebrating our third-year anniversary as “Ridgefieldians,” having moved to this incredible community from LA, by way of Westchester County. Following our move, Meghan was lucky to find work as a speech and language pathologist at Barlow Elementary and I’m a filmmaker/producer who splits time between Manhattan, Ridgefield, and wherever in the world my crazy fun job takes me. Our two youngest kids, Wyatt, and Amelia are currently rocking 2nd grade and 5th grade, respectively, at Scotland Elementary, while our oldest Hudson is living his best 7th grade life at Scott’s Ridge.
Meghan and I are so grateful to have found this incredible community that we now call home. Aside from being carved out of a Norman Rockwell painting, what has made our experience so special has been the incredible warmth we’ve felt from everyone we have met through the school district, community gatherings, neighbor block parties, and, of course, through sports. The collective level of school spirit and overall pride in the community is unmatched and it’s been hugely inspirational to see parents in this community take “volunteerism” to new levels.
To that end, one of my loves in life has been soccer. I had an incredible club experience that prepared me for a state championship run in high school and an incredible division one college career. Since the kids were little, I’ve been exploiting just about every opportunity I can to live vicariously through them as they develop their relationship to the game that brought me so much joy, structure, discipline, focus, unforgettable memories on the pitch, and above all, camaraderie that created the foundation for life-long friendships. I’ve coached all my kids in SCOR’s house league and over the years been so fortunate to meet so many incredibly talented kids who are developing their own relationship to soccer, as well as their supportive parents, and parent-coaches. I’ve also had the good fortune of meeting some of the wildly passionate like-minded folks behind SCOR who are motivated to strengthen and grow the club… I couldn't resist putting my name in the hat if/when an opportunity presented itself to take a more active role in the club.
Okay, so that’s my mini backstory. Now, if you would please indulge me a bit further. Re: SCOR, my primary function is to serve as your direct liaison to the board and to the club’s program administrators. Second, improve comms across the board.
And given accountability is essential, I wanted to lay out a few of SCOR’s short term goals in the form of a pledge that every board member stands by.
On the go forward you will…
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…experience more consistent communications across all programs and have more visibility into the inner workings of the club, as well as more line of sight to what we are doing to foster development opportunities that tie directly to US Soccer initiatives. I will be your point of contact ([email protected]) and will do my level best to answer all questions relating to the program.
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…be provided more organic touchpoints to work with our amazing coaching staff vis a vis SCOR sponsored community events (e.g. SCOR fundraisers or “watch parties” at Ridgefield establishments where you’ll be invited to watch key MLS, Premier League, and Champions League matches).
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…be invited to actively participate in celebrating the narrative of your kid’s/team’s growth within the SCOR community by taking advantage of SCOR’s newly reinvigorated social media presence. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be reskinning SCOR’s Instagram (@scor.ct) account, our presence on FACEBOOK (https://www.facebook.com/SoccerClubofRidgefield), and where possible, we’ll also make the comms on the scor.org website more visible.
The updates and content we’ll be posting on all social media platforms is geared towards a) strengthening comms, b) soccer enrichment/extensions and c) celebrating our amazing SCOR players.
You’ll also see content that showcases skills of the week (produced by our very own coaching staff), profiles on players and coaches, timely/important communications, and last, highlights from the weekend games. As such, we invite and encourage you to post content of your players/teams on our Instagram page @scor.ct or to our FACEBOOK page.
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…improved communication between the parent-coaches and our professional staff of coaches. We are creating a direct pipeline that will allow our parent-coaches to dialogue directly with House professional coaches about the weekend games, so weekday skills are oriented to directly serve and enhance the team’s performance.
Thank you so much for your time and I look forward to getting to know you more in the coming weeks and months.
Warmly,
Matt
Ps. Last, forgive the shameless plug: I’ve been humbled to have had the privilege to spend the last few years producing two documentary series on APPLE+ with Leo Messi: Messi Meets America, and Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend. Check it out!! Hope you enjoy it…